Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-10-07
THE RINGS IN TREES
Some Curious Observations in Measure
ments of Forest Growth.
Lumber World.]

Lumber World.]
r. w. Turras, all agent of the United
States Forestry Department, who has
given much attention to the age OF q
tree as indicated by rings, rs we'll as to
the period at which trees of different
species stop growing and that at which
the wood is at its best, has reached
some conclusions of general interest.
He says:
"Concentric or annual rings, which
were once accepted as good legal evil
dence, fail, except where climate, soil,
temperature, humidity, and all other
surroundings are regular and well-bal-
anced. Otherwise they are mere guess
work. The only region within my
knowledge where either rings or meas
urements were reliable indications are
in the secluded even and regularly
tempered valleys of the Southern Pacific
coast.
! Annual measurements of white elm,
catalpa. soft maple, sycamore, pig
hickory, cotton wood, CHESTNUT box
elder, honey locust, coffee tree, burr
and white oak, black walnut, Usage
orange, white pine, red cedar, null
berry, and yellow willow, (nineteen
species), made in Southeastern Ne
braska, shows that annual growth is
very irregular, sometimes scarcely per-
ceptible and again quite large" and
this he attributes to the difference in
seasons. AS trees increase in age inner
rings decrease in size, sometimes al
most disappearing. Diminished rate in
growth after a certain age is q rule.
OF four great beeches mentioned in Lon
don, there were three, each about
seventeen feet in girth, whose ages were
respectively 60, 1O2, and 200 years.
MIR. Furras found twelve rings in o
black locust 6 years old twenty-one
rings in shellbarll hickory of 10
years, ten rings in pig hickory of 6
years, eleven rings in a wild crabapple
of 5 years, and only twenty rings in a
chestnut oak of "a years. An American
chestnut of only years had nine rings,
while peach of years had only five
rings.
DIR. A. M. Childs, resident of
Nebraska from 1854 to 1882, q careful
observer for the Smithsonian Institu-
ton, who counted rings on some soft
naples II years 2 months old, found
on one side of the heart of one Of them
forty rings and not less thin thirty-five
anywhere, which were quite distinct
when the wood was green, but after it
had been seasoned only twentyfour
rings could be distinguished. Another
expert says that all our northern hard
woods make many rings a year, some
times as many as twelve, but as the
last set Of cells in q years growth ore
very small and tine first very large, the
annual growth can always be deter
mined, except when from local causes
there is in any particular -ear little
orno cell growth. This MAJ give a large
number on one side. Upon the Pacific
coast of North America trees do not
reach the point where they stop grow.
ing nearly as early as those OF the At
lantic coast. Two hundred years is
nearly the greatest age attained on the
eastern side Of the continent by trees
that retain their vigor, while 500 years
is the case of several species on
the western coast, and one writer is
confident that q sequoia which was
measured was not less than 2,37G
years old. At Wrangel, latitude So de-
grees, 60 minutes, Western he1nlock,
six feet in diameter at the stump, was
four feet in diameter 1872 feet further
up the trunk, and it's rings showed 432
years. But in the Old Bartram,
Garden, near Philadelphia, not more
than $50 years old, almost all the trees
are on the down grade. The Quercue
Robar, England's pride, which at home
is said to live 1000 years, has grown to
full size and died in this garden, and
the foreign spruces are following suit.
Silver frs planted in 1900 are decaying.
The great difference in the longevity OF
trees upon the western and eastern
coasts of the continents in the Northern
Hemisphere seems to be due to the
warm, moist air carried by strong and
permanent ocean currents from the
tropics northeasterly, in both the Pacific
and Atlantic Oceans, which make the
climate both moist and equable in high
attitudes In Sitka, latitude 81 de-
grees, as much as 100 inches of rain
have fallen in a year, and tho harbor is
rarely frozen enough to hinder the
passage of boats In some winters
scarcely any ice is seen.
The Dollar.
Our word dollar dates back to 1885,
when O resolution was passed by Con